Jon Ward, MD

04/17/2026

Thank you to Grace Velez and WMBB News 13 for covering the ongoing concerns about EMS transport practices in Walton County.

There is one thing Sheriff Adkinson and I agree on — genuine patient preference deserves to be respected and honored. We agree completely. That is exactly why the patient accounts we have documented are so troubling.

The Sheriff made several factual misstatements in last night’s story. He stated in October that North Walton Doctors Hospital did not perform orthopedic surgery. That is incorrect. We have been performing orthopedic and spine surgery with overnight inpatient stays since May of last year. We welcome anyone to verify that.

The Sheriff also suggested that a patient was transported away from NWDH for specialist care. The clinical record does not support that explanation — and the transport was documented as patient preference, not a clinical determination. If a clinical reason drove the transport decision, it should have been documented as one.

The Sheriff said to follow the money — and on that point, we agree. EMS in Walton County is funded by taxpayers. It is a public service. And yet in September, Sheriff Adkinson requested — and received — $1.7 million in EMS transport surplus revenue to be added to his office’s budget for this fiscal year. EMS agencies are reimbursed per mile for transports. Longer transports generate more revenue. That financial structure deserves scrutiny when transport patterns shift this dramatically.

Florida law requires a §768.28 notice before a lawsuit can even be filed. It is not a lawsuit. It is a mandatory prerequisite that gives a government entity a 90-day window to investigate, respond, and resolve the matter without litigation. NWDH filing a §768.28 notice is NWDH following the law — the same law that exists specifically to give government agencies an opportunity to fix problems before courts get involved. That remains our sincere hope.

North Walton Doctors Hospital remains open to direct communication and resolution. The door has always been open on our end.

04/17/2026

Here’s the story. My comments to follow tomorrow!

North Walton Doctors Hospital officials are claiming that Walton County EMS crews are purposefully not transferring patients to their hospital.

The hospital's Senior Executive for External Relations, Dr. Jon Ward, presented his concerns to the county commission on Tuesday.

Link in comments.

04/16/2026

I want to thank everyone for the show of support for North Walton Doctors Hospital in the face of our struggles with Walton County Sheriff's Office, Florida diverting patients away from our facility. A little birdie told me to be on the lookout for a news story on WMBB News 13 this evening. I wanted to put this out there in case facts are misrepresented. Here’s the major findings from a study of over 300,000 EMS transports and when other factors (including patient preference) led to the closest ED being bypassed (35%). This is where the 1 in 12 million statistical anomaly comes from. Assumes 30% of the 35% is due to stated patient preference leading to diversion (extremely conservative). Interesting enough, this same study found if you include facilities within 5 miles of the closest, that number dropped to 6.8%. For data nerds who want to read the whole study you can access it here:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8928012/

On the falsified patient care report, we have the receipts and thanks to all of you out there on Facebook we have even more Walton County citizens with written statements showing that EMTs are making false statements about our clinical capabilities and even telling patients their insurance won’t cover the ambulance trip if the patient doesn’t go to where they want to take them.

The goal here is getting Walton EMS to admit they have a problem, which their leadership failed to do after private meetings. Going public was not our preference.

We want Walton EMS to commit to retraining their EMTs to follow established protocols, to stop falsifying their patient care reports, to understand that informed consent is only valid when the information provided is accurate. This situation can be easily resolved, but if you’re unwilling to admit there’s a problem it cannot be fixed. I’ll be all ears when the story airs.

04/15/2026

Today at the Walton County Commission meeting, I shared data from North Walton Doctors Hospital and Walton County Sheriff's Office, Florida documenting systemic diversion of EMS transports against patient request and against the policy of “closest appropriate facility.” I was forced to go to the Commissioners because meetings with WCFR EMS were not being productive and they were refusing to provide data we needed to ensure protocols were being followed. The chances that they followed their own protocols in just one week in one town in the county where 16 patients were diverted to another facility at a further distance is just 1 in 12 million. We had an EMS transport patient from last week come to us to tell us she asked to come to our hospital and was taken elsewhere. In her patient care record from EMS, they documented she requested to go to the other facility which she did not. The only explanation is that local EMS is falsifying their own records to justify their transports. I thank the commission for hearing from me and Eric Fisher today. And I thank Mrs. Ferris who I had no idea was going to be there for telling her story! We need accountability and that starts at the top. The ball is in your court now Sheriff!

04/13/2026

😴 This chart should concern every parent and coach in America.

A study published in JAMA tracked sleep trends among U.S. high school students from 2007 to 2023 — and the numbers are moving in the wrong direction. Insufficient sleep is increasing, driven largely by a growing percentage of teens getting 5 hours or less per night. Not 7. Not 6. Five.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 8–10 hours for teenagers. Most of our kids aren’t coming close.

Now connect that to something happening on baseball diamonds across the country: Tommy John surgery — once a rare procedure for professional pitchers — is now epidemic at the youth level. UCL injuries in young players are 10 times higher than they were in 2000, and the 15–19 age group is the fastest-growing surgical population, rising over 9% per year.

These two trends are not a coincidence.
Chronic sleep deprivation — just five nights of less than 8 hours — is directly associated with increased injury risk in young athletes. Poor sleep impairs neuromuscular coordination, increases injury risk, and slows recovery. Sleep-deprived athletes show slower reaction times, reduced situational awareness, and are more likely to make high-risk decisions — overestimating the likelihood of a good outcome.

A tired arm connected to a tired brain is an injury waiting to happen.

We obsess over pitch counts, velocity programs, and travel schedules.

Meanwhile, the single most powerful recovery and injury-prevention tool our kids have — sleep — is quietly disappearing.

For your young athlete this season:
✅ 8–10 hours is the target, not a suggestion
✅ No screens for 60 minutes before bed
✅ Consistent sleep and wake times — even on weekends
✅ Treat rest days as seriously as practice days

The data is clear. The question is whether we’ll act on it.

04/09/2026

Hello FB friends - if you live in the Walton County area I need your assistance. We have received several reports of local EMS transports where patients requested transport to North Walton Doctors Hospital and were instead taken to HCA’s Freestanding Emergency Room or a different facility. The county EMS policy is patient preference, so you should receive transport to the requested facility. Please send me a DM with your (or your family members name) and the date of the transport. This is very important information for us to have and document to make sure that the official protocols are being followed.

04/08/2026

There's a lot of buzz this week about AI reaching "dermatologist-level accuracy" in detecting melanoma. The headlines are breathless. So let me give you the honest medical take nobody else will.

Yes, AI can look at an image of a mole and correctly flag melanoma a high percentage of the time — in controlled studies, with clean photographs, on curated datasets. And that's genuinely impressive. But here's what the press release leaves out: the same studies admit the algorithms perform significantly worse on darker skin tones, that real-world lighting and photo quality destroy accuracy, and that even at its best, the tool "may enhance performance when used as a decision-support tool" — meaning it still needs a trained physician.

Melanoma kills more Americans this year than ever before. 112,000 new diagnoses expected in 2026 alone. It has doubled in 30 years. We didn't get here because of a shortage of apps. We got here because people skip their annual skin checks, spend too much time in the sun without protection, and use tanning beds that we have known for decades are carcinogenic.

An AI on your phone will not save your life. A board-certified skin cancer surgeon who catches a stage I melanoma before it becomes a stage IV will. Get your skin checked.

04/07/2026

Last year RFK Jr. cleaned house on the CDC's vaccine advisory committee — ACIP. He removed all 17 so-called "independent experts" who had spent years cozying up to the pharmaceutical industry and replaced them with people willing to actually ask hard questions.

A federal judge in Boston said "not so fast" and ruled that Kennedy's picks were "unqualified." Put their decisions on hold. The media celebrated.

Here's what they didn't tell you: the panel Kennedy dissolved had 17 members. Every single one had documented financial ties to the vaccine manufacturers whose products they were recommending. Not some of them. All 17. But somehow the new members who DON'T have those conflicts are the "unqualified" ones. Wrap your head around that.

So what does RFK do? He rewrites the membership rules and rebuilds the committee using every legal tool available to him. The establishment spent decades building procedural walls to protect itself. Don't be surprised when the people trying to tear those walls down have to find new doors.

This is what real reform looks like. It isn't clean. It isn't fast. And the people who benefit from the old system will fight it every step of the way. Stay the course.

02/23/2026

The old adage warning about the dangers of “wokeness:” was Go Woke, Go Broke. But given the increasing stupidity of the liberals in Canada, they spent the last several months urging their citizens to boycott America and spend their money in Mexico.

There is even a larger movement among European soccer fans to only attend World Cup matches in either Mexico or Canada.

Fast forward to yesterday, when the Mexican military kills a cartel leader and now you have tens of thousands of Canadians trapped in Mexico with no way home. Airports closed, buses and taxis burning, all Mexico now under travel warnings. FIFA is now having to consider moving all of their soccer games out of Mexico. In this case it’s isn’t Go Woke Go Broke, it’s more like Thinking US is Unsafe, is Making a Big Mistake!

02/22/2026

So I have seen a lot on social media over the years, but some adults really see no lines to be crossed when they disagree with you. Andrew Cady a local mortgage broker found it necessary to refer to my 13 year old son, who he has never encountered or met, an entitled a-hole. And then 11 other adults liked that he called my 13 year old son an a-hole.

What the heck is wrong with people?

Update: the screenshots were from a private group and had to be removed per group policy, as was the post I referenced for obvious reasons.

02/22/2026

It can take over 8 month to get your hip replaced in Canada, but if you have a mental illness that makes you feel the need to have both male and female ge***alia you get it your way, right away.

It isn’t just Canadian Hockey that is for losers! We’ve ended ge***al mutilation in America and if you need a new hip you can get it. Gold medal 🥇 in health care too!

02/21/2026

Legitimate question for Walton County Sheriff's Office, Florida: after staking out the Starbucks and detaining kids for riding e-bikes last night, they are now patrolling the Origins neighborhood and knocking on doors to talk to 10 and 11 year olds after coming home on their e-bikes and asking them if they know a kid photographed popping a wheelie. Is this good use of a badge and gun? Maybe the community should set standards on what requires a badge and gun to get involved?

Personally, I think it’s great for kids to get outside and explore the area. This crackdown is keeping kids scared to go riding and right back on their screens.